Tennessee football’s offense found a good bit of success despite a significant turnover in personnel in its 45-26 win over Syracuse in the season opener last Saturday. With the all-22 film diced up, former Vols quarterback Jarrett Guarantano got access and did a deep dive into what he saw from Josh Heupel, Joey Aguilar and the offense.
Guarantano was with Tennessee from 2016-20. In his UT career, he played in 41 games with 32 starts. He threw for a total of 6,174 yards and 38 touchdowns on 494-of-808 pass attempts in this time. He would finish his college career at Washington State in 2021 before spending time with the Denver Broncos and Arizona Cardinals in the NFL. Guarantano also spent time in the USFL and signed a new contract in January 2025, but is seemingly starting to lean into creating content.
“I love this stuff, though. My dreams and aspirations, I want to be on SEC Network talking football,” Guarantano said in the video. “I want to be, obviously, back in Knoxville talking as much football as possible. I’m so grateful for you guys being so accepting of me over the past couple months, even the past year. Obviously, you guys know how much I love you guys and miss you guys, but the love that I’ve gotten truly warms my heart.”
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Watch the full hour-long breakdown of Tennessee’s offense vs. Syracuse below:
In his breakdown, Guarantano took a look at the biggest play of the game, a 73-yard strike from Aguilar to Braylon Staley. While he sang the praises of Aguilar’s throw, he was also very impressed by the route that Staley ran.
“That is very, very difficult to win on a post route vs. inside leverage,” Guarantano said. “But if you have speed, and you’re able to step on his toes and flip him around, you have everything you want. Especially with this run game fake, cause in quarters, realistically, safeties are run defenders, and they’re really focused on their tight ends, they’re focused on their No. 2 receivers, as well, seeing if they’re going vertical. That’s why the corners are such inside leverage… they understand they have no true help if that safety was to take a sail or safety was to take a dig and they were running mills or any sort of combination. So they’re super inside and they also understand that from hash-to-hash, that is a far throw. If they can throw an out-route from that far, a quarterback, praise be to God for them.
“So you’re seeing this stem, he’s getting vertical, he’s getting vertical. The cornerback should’ve stayed in his backpedal a little bit longer. But with his speed, he’s so scared of his speed that he opens fast. He still hasn’t planted. As soon as he gets on his toes, he plants and he makes that cut. If you make that cut two yards shorter, then that corner is going to have enough time to react to the cut and he’s going to be able to bump him off his landmark.
“He steps on his toes, he stays skinny, gives Joey enough time to throw it to the left, or enough space to throw it to the left if he needs to. Touchdown Vols. And now we’re singing, ‘Good ol’ Rocky Top, Woo!’ That was a great play. Great job by Coach Heupel, literally, next play, dialing this thing up. Great throw. In stride, buddy is flying.”
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Guarantano was also complimentary of the run game. Tennessee got production out of all three backs, with DeSean Bishop and Peyton Lewis both running for a score and Star Thomas catching one.
The play he reacted to was Bishop’s run that was ruled just short of the end zone ahead of halftime. The blocking from the offensive line, tight ends and receivers caught his attention, as well.
“(Bishop) is just gritty, man. Boys were playing gritty,” Guarantano said. “Our running backs looked really tough, really, really good. I understand this is not an SEC game, but our o-line was playing so tough and so down hill and physical, and look at our running backs. 0 (Ethan Davis) was blocking his tail off and Miles (Kitselman) was blocking his tail off. We were playing such a physical game with tempo and I don’t know how any team can stop that. I really don’t know how.”
Guarantano said that he will release weekly content on what he sees from Tennessee, along with other big games that take place across college football. You can find his YouTube channel here.
